Our psyche is quite subtle and complex system. Experts classify it as a form of a person’s active reflection of objective reality, which arises during an individual’s interaction with the outside world and regulates his behavior and activities. Quite often doctors have to deal with pathological abnormalities from a normal state, which they call mental disorders. There are many mental disorders, but some are more common. Let's talk about what a human mental disorder is in a little more detail, discuss the symptoms, treatment, types and causes of such health problems.
Causes of mental disorders
Mental disorders can be explained by the most various factors, which can generally be divided into exogenous and endogenous. The first are external factors, for example, the intake of dangerous toxic substances, viral illnesses and traumatic injuries. A internal reasons represented by chromosomal mutations, hereditary and genetic ailments, as well as disorders mental development.
An individual’s resistance to mental disorders is determined by both specific physical characteristics and the general development of the psyche. After all, different subjects react differently to mental anguish and various kinds of problems.
TO typical reasons that cause mental disorders include neuroses, neurasthenia, depressive states, aggressive exposure to chemical or toxic elements, as well as traumatic injuries to the head and hereditary factor.
Mental disorders - symptoms
There are a number various symptoms which can be observed in mental disorders. They most often manifest themselves as psychological discomfort and disturbances in activity different areas. Patients with such problems experience various symptoms of physical and emotional nature, cognitive and perceptual impairments may also occur. For example, a person may feel unhappy or extremely happy, regardless of the seriousness of the events that occurred, and he may also experience failures in building logical relationships.
Classic manifestations of mental disorders are considered excessive fatigue, rapid and unexpected changes in mood, insufficiently adequate reaction to events, spatiotemporal disorientation. Also, specialists are faced with a violation of perception in their patients; they may not have an adequate attitude towards their own condition, abnormal reactions (or lack of adequate reactions), fear, confusion (sometimes hallucinations) are observed. Enough common symptom mental disorders include anxiety, problems with sleep, falling asleep and waking up.
Sometimes mental health problems are accompanied by the appearance of obsessions, delusions of persecution and various phobias. Such disorders often lead to the development of depressive states, which can be interrupted by frantic emotional outbursts aimed at fulfilling some incredible plans.
Many mental disorders are accompanied by disorders of self-awareness, which make themselves felt by confusion, depersonalization and derealization. People with such problems often have weakened memory (and sometimes completely absent), paramnesia and disturbances. thought process.
Delusion, which can be either primary, sensory or affective, is considered a frequent accompaniment of mental disorders.
Sometimes mental disorders manifest themselves as problems with eating - overeating, which can cause obesity, or, conversely, refusal to eat. Alcohol abuse is common. Many patients with such problems suffer from sexual dysfunction. They also often look sloppy and may even refuse hygiene procedures.
Types of mental disorders
There are quite a few classifications of mental disorders. We will consider only one of them. It includes conditions provoked by various organic diseases of the brain - injuries, strokes and systemic diseases.
Also, doctors separately consider persistent or drug use.
In addition, disorders can be identified psychological development(debut in early childhood) and disturbances in activity, concentration and hyperkinetic disorders(usually recorded in children or adolescents).
Mental disorder - treatment
Therapy for problems of this kind is carried out under the supervision of a psychotherapist and other specialized specialists, while the doctor takes into account not only the diagnosis, but also the patient’s condition and other existing health problems.
This is how experts quite often use sedatives which have a pronounced calming effect. Tranquilizers can also be used; they effectively reduce anxiety and relieve emotional tension. Such drugs also reduce muscle tone and have a mild hypnotic effect. The most common tranquilizers are Chlordiazepoxide, and.
Mental disorders are also treated using antipsychotics. These drugs are considered the most popular for such diseases; they are good at reducing mental agitation, reducing psychomotor activity, reducing aggressiveness and suppressing emotional tension. Popular drugs in this group are Propazine, Pimozide, and Flupenthixol.
Antidepressants are used to treat patients with complete depression of thoughts and feelings, with a severe decrease in mood. Such medications can increase the pain threshold, improve mood, relieve apathy and lethargy; they normalize sleep and appetite quite well, and also increase mental activity. Qualified psychotherapists often use Pyritinol and as antidepressants.
Treatment of mental disorders can also be carried out with the help of mood stabilizers, which are designed to regulate inappropriate manifestations of emotions and have anticonvulsant effectiveness. Such medications are often used for bipolar affective disorder. These include, etc.
Maximum safe medications For the treatment of mental disorders, nootropics are considered to have a positive effect on cognitive processes, enhance memory and increase the resistance of the nervous system to various stresses. The drugs of choice are usually Aminalon.
In addition, patients with mental disorders Corrective psychotherapy is indicated. They will benefit from hypnotic techniques, suggestions, sometimes NLP methods. Important role mastering the autogenic training technique plays a role; in addition, one cannot do without the support of relatives.
Mental disorders - traditional treatment
Specialists traditional medicine claim that some medicines based on herbs and improvised means may well help eliminate mental disorders. But they can be used only after consultation with the doctor.
Thus, traditional medicines can be an excellent alternative to some sedative medications. For example, to eliminate nervous excitement, irritability and insomnia, healers advise mixing three parts of crushed valerian root, the same number of leaves peppermint and four parts clover. Brew a tablespoon of this raw material with a glass of just boiled water. Infuse the medicine for twenty minutes, then strain and squeeze out the plant material. Take the prepared infusion half a glass twice a day and immediately before bed.
Also for irritability of the nervous system, insomnia and nervous excitement, you can mix two parts of valerian roots with three parts of chamomile flowers and three parts of caraway seeds. Brew and take this remedy in the same way as in the previous recipe.
You can cope with insomnia with a simple infusion based on hops. A couple of tablespoons of crushed pine cones of this plant pour half a liter of cool, pre-boiled water. Leave for five to seven hours, then strain and drink a tablespoon three or four times a day.
Another excellent sedative is oregano. Brew a couple of tablespoons of this herb with half a liter of boiling water. Leave for half an hour, then strain and take half a glass three or four times a day immediately before meals. This medicine perfectly eliminates sleep problems.
Some traditional medicines can be used to treat depression. So, taking a medicine based on chicory root gives a good effect. Brew twenty grams of this crushed raw material with a glass of boiling water. Boil the product over low heat for ten minutes, then strain. Take the prepared decoction one tablespoon five to six times a day.
If depression is accompanied by severe loss of energy, prepare a medicine based on rosemary. Brew twenty grams of crushed leaves of such a plant with one glass of boiling water and simmer over low heat for fifteen to twenty minutes. Ready medicine cool, then strain. Take half a teaspoon half an hour before meals.
Taking an infusion based on common knotweed also has a remarkable effect on depression. Brew a couple of tablespoons of this herb with half a liter of boiling water. Leave for half an hour, then strain. Take small portions throughout the day.
Mental disorders are quite serious conditions that require close attention and adequate correction under the supervision of specialists. Feasibility of application folk remedies It is also worth discussing with your doctor.
This collective concept, denoting a group of pathological conditions affecting the nervous system and the entire complex of human behavioral reactions. Such disorders can develop as a result of failures in metabolic processes, occurring in the brain. In a broad sense, this expression is usually understood as a state of the human psyche that differs from the generally accepted norm.
Mental disorders
An individual's resistance to mental disorders depends on general development his psyche and the complex of his specific physical characteristics.
Many of the mental disorders (especially in early stages development) may be invisible to the eyes of others, but at the same time, they significantly complicate the patient’s life.
Causes of mental disorders
The factors that provoke the occurrence of mental disorders are very diverse, but all of them can be divided into two large categories: exogenous (this includes external influences, for example, trauma, infectious diseases, intoxication) and endogenous (this group includes hereditary, genetic diseases, chromosomal mutations, mental development disorders).
The main causes of mental dysfunction:
Signs of a mental disorder
Such symptoms can cause prolonged depressive state, interspersed with episodes of short-term bursts of affect.
Classification of mental illnesses
According to etiology (origin), all mental illnesses can be divided into two groups:
- Endogenous- the causes of the disease in these cases are internal factors; This includes genetic diseases and diseases with a hereditary predisposition.
- Exogenous- the causative factors of these diseases are poisons, alcohol, traumatic brain injuries, radiation, infections, stressful situations, psychological trauma. Variety exogenous diseases are psychogenic diseases arising as a result emotional stress, or may be related to social or family problems.
The following types of mental disorders are distinguished:
Flow
Most often, mental illnesses arise and debut in childhood or adolescence. The main features of mental disorders in these cases:
Diagnostics
When diagnosing, it is imperative to examine the patient for the presence (absence) of somatic diseases. The presence of complaints characteristic of internal diseases in the absence of pathology from the internal organs will be one of indirect signs presence of mental illness.
A significant difficulty in treatment is the fact that a person suffering from a mental disorder is either unaware of it or is inclined to deny his condition due to fear of treatment or due to stereotypes. Meanwhile, in the early stages of many mental disorders, treatment can provide significant improvement and cause stable, long-term remission.
It is advisable to conduct therapy in conditions that promote the patient’s psychological comfort.
- Psychotherapy has the goal of stopping or at least softening the patient’s discomfort, which he feels in the form of unpleasant obsessive thoughts, fears, and anxiety; helps in getting rid of unpleasant character traits. Psychotherapy can be carried out either individually with the patient or in a group (with relatives, or with other patients who have similar problems).
- Somatic therapy, features, pharmacotherapy, aims to influence the well-being and behavioral characteristics of the patient, as well as eliminate unpleasant symptoms causing him anxiety. Somatic therapy is now widely used in psychiatry, although the pathogenesis of some types of disorders is still not entirely clear.
The term "mental disorder" refers to a huge number of different illness conditions. To learn how to navigate them, to understand their essence, we will use the experience of presenting the doctrine of these disorders, that is, psychiatry, in textbooks intended for specialists.
The study of psychiatry (Greek psyche - soul, iateria - treatment) traditionally begins with the introduction general psychopathology and only then move on to private psychiatry. General psychopathology includes the study of symptoms and syndromes (signs) mental illness, since any disease, including mental illness, is, first of all, a set of its specific manifestations. Private psychiatry provides a description of specific mental illnesses - the causes of their occurrence, mechanisms of development, clinical manifestations, treatment, and preventive measures.
Let's consider the main symptoms and syndromes of mental disorders in order of their severity - from mild to more profound.
Asthenic syndrome.
Asthenic syndrome (asthenia) is a widespread condition that is manifested by increased fatigue, exhaustion, and decreased performance. People with asthenic disorders experience weakness, instability of mood, they are characterized by impressionability, sentimentality, and tearfulness; They are easily moved, they are easily irritated, they lose their composure over any little thing. Asthenic conditions are also characterized by frequent headaches and sleep disturbances (it becomes superficial, does not bring rest, and increased sleepiness is noted during the day).
Asthenia is a nonspecific disorder, i.e. can be observed in almost any mental illness, as well as in somatic diseases, in particular after operations, severe infectious diseases, or overwork.
Obsessiveness.
Obsessions are experiences in which a person, against his will, has any special thoughts, fears, doubts. At the same time, a person recognizes them as his own, they visit him again and again, it is impossible to get rid of them, despite a critical attitude towards them. Obsessive disorders can manifest themselves in the emergence of painful doubts, completely unjustified, and sometimes simply ridiculous thoughts, in an irresistible desire to count everything. A person with such disorders may check several times whether the light in the apartment has been turned off, whether front door, and as soon as he moves away from the house, doubts take possession of him again.
This same group of disorders includes obsessive fears - fear of heights, enclosed spaces, open spaces, traveling in public transport and many others. Sometimes, to relieve anxiety, internal tension, calm down a little, people experiencing obsessive fears and doubts perform certain obsessive actions or movements (rituals). For example, a person with obsessive fear contaminated person can spend hours in the bathroom, wash his hands repeatedly with soap, and if he is distracted by something, start the whole procedure again and again.
Affective syndromes.
These mental disorders are the most common. Affective syndromes appear persistent changes mood, more often by its decrease - depression, or increase - mania. Affective syndromes often occur at the very beginning of mental illness. They may remain predominant throughout, but may become more complex and coexist for a long time with other, more severe mental disorders. As the disease progresses, depression and mania are often the last to disappear.
When we talk about depression, we primarily mean its following manifestations.
- Decreased mood, feeling of depression, depression, melancholy, in severe cases physically felt as heaviness or chest pain. This is an extremely painful condition for a person.
- Decreased mental activity (thoughts become poorer, shorter, more vague). A person in this state does not answer questions immediately - after a pause, gives short, monosyllabic answers, speaks slowly, in a quiet voice. Quite often, patients with depression note that they find it difficult to understand the meaning of the question asked of them, the essence of what they read, and complain of memory loss. Such patients have difficulty making decisions and cannot switch to new activities.
- Motor inhibition - patients experience weakness, lethargy, muscle relaxation, talk about fatigue, their movements are slow and constrained.
In addition to the above, characteristic manifestations of depression are:
- feelings of guilt, ideas of self-blame, sinfulness;
- a feeling of despair, hopelessness, impasse, which is very often accompanied by thoughts of death and suicide attempts;
- daily fluctuations in condition, often with some relief of well-being in the evening;
- sleep disorders; shallow, intermittent night sleep, with early awakenings, disturbing dreams, sleep does not bring rest).
Depression may also be accompanied by sweating, tachycardia, fluctuations blood pressure, sensations of heat, cold, chilliness, loss of appetite, weight loss, constipation (sometimes from the side digestive system Symptoms such as heartburn, nausea, belching occur).
Depressions are characterized high risk committing suicide!
Read the text below carefully - this will help you to notice in time the appearance of suicidal thoughts and intentions in a person with depression.
If you have depression, the possibility of a suicide attempt is indicated by:
- statements of a sick person about his uselessness, guilt, sin;
- a feeling of hopelessness, meaninglessness of life, reluctance to make plans for the future;
- sudden calm after long period anxiety and melancholy;
- accumulation of medications;
- a sudden desire to meet old friends, ask forgiveness from loved ones, put your affairs in order, make a will.
The appearance of suicidal thoughts and intentions is an indication to immediately consult a doctor and decide on hospitalization in a psychiatric hospital!
Manias (manic states) are characterized by the following symptoms.
- Increased mood (fun, carefree, rosy, unshakable optimism).
- Speeding up the pace mental activity(the appearance of many thoughts, various plans and desires, ideas of overestimating one’s own personality).
- Motor excitement (excessive liveliness, mobility, talkativeness, feeling of excess energy, desire for activity).
Manic states, like depression, are characterized by sleep disturbances: usually people with these disorders sleep little, however short nap It’s enough for them to feel cheerful and rested. With a soft option manic state(so-called hypomania) a person experiences an increase in creative powers, an increase in intellectual productivity, vitality, and efficiency. He can work a lot and sleep little. He perceives all events with optimism.
If hypomia turns into mania, that is, the condition becomes more severe, the listed manifestations are accompanied by increased distractibility, extreme instability of attention and, as a result, loss of productivity. Often people in a state of mania look lightweight, braggarts, their speech is replete with jokes, witticisms, quotes, their facial expressions are animated, their faces are flushed. When talking, they often change their position, cannot sit still, and actively gesticulate.
Characteristic symptoms of mania are increased appetite and increased sexuality. The behavior of patients can be unrestrained, they can establish multiple sexual relationships, and commit thoughtless and sometimes ridiculous actions. A cheerful and joyful mood can be replaced by irritability and anger. As a rule, with mania, the understanding of the painfulness of one’s condition is lost.
Senestopathies.
Senestopathies (Latin sensus - feeling, sensation, pathos - illness, suffering) are symptoms of mental disorders, manifested by a wide variety of unusual sensations in the body in the form of tingling, burning, twisting, tightening, transfusion, etc., not associated with any disease internal organ. Senestopathies are always unique, unlike anything else. The vague nature of these disorders causes serious difficulties when trying to characterize them. To describe such sensations, patients sometimes use their own definitions (“rustling under the ribs,” “squelching in the spleen,” “it seems like the head is coming off”). Senestopathy is often accompanied by thoughts about the presence of some kind of somatic disease, and then we are talking about hypochondriacal syndrome.
Hypochondriacal syndrome.
This syndrome is characterized by persistent preoccupation with one's own health, constant thoughts about the presence of a serious, progressive and possibly incurable somatic disease. People with this disorder present persistent physical complaints, often interpreting normal or routine sensations as manifestations of illness. Despite the negative results of examinations and the dissuading specialists, they regularly visit different doctors, insisting on additional serious examinations and repeated consultations. Hypochondriacal disorders often develop against the background of depression.
Illusions.
When illusions arise, real-life objects are perceived by a person in a changed - erroneous form. Illusory perception can also occur against the background of complete mental health, when it is a manifestation of one of the laws of physics: if, for example, you look at an object under water, it will seem much larger than in reality.
Illusions can also appear under the influence of strong feelings - anxiety, fear. So, at night in the forest, trees can be perceived as some kind of monster. At pathological conditions real images and objects can be perceived in a bizarre and fantastic form: the wallpaper pattern is a “tangle of worms”, the shadow from a floor lamp is “the head of a terrible lizard”, the pattern on the carpet is “a beautiful unprecedented landscape”.
Hallucinations.
This is the name for disorders in which a person with a disturbed psyche sees, hears, feels something that does not exist in reality.
Hallucinations are divided into auditory, visual, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, and general sense hallucinations (visceral, muscular). However, their combination is also possible (for example, a sick person can see a group of strangers, hear them talking).
Auditory hallucinations manifest themselves in the patient’s pathological perception of certain words, speeches, conversations (verbal hallucinations), as well as individual sounds or noises. Verbal hallucinations can be very different in content - from so-called calls, when a sick person hears a voice calling him by name or surname, to entire phrases and conversations involving one or more voices. Patients call verbal hallucinations “voices.”
Sometimes the “voices” are of an imperative nature - these are the so-called imperative hallucinations, when a person hears an order to remain silent, to hit, to kill someone, or to harm himself. Such conditions are very dangerous both for the patients themselves and for those around them, and therefore are an indication for serious drug treatment as well as special supervision and care.
Visual hallucinations can be elementary (in the form of sparks, smoke) or objective. Sometimes the patient sees entire scenes (battlefield, hell). Olfactory hallucinations most often represent an imaginary sensation unpleasant odors(rotting, decay, poisons, some kind of food), less often unfamiliar or pleasant.
Tactile hallucinations occur predominantly in late age, while patients experience burning, itching, bites, pain, other sensations, touching the body. The text below lists the signs by which one can determine or at least suspect the presence of auditory and visual hallucinatory disorders in a sick person.
Signs of auditory and visual hallucinations.
- conversations with oneself that resemble a conversation (for example, emotional answers to some questions);
- unexpected laughter for no reason;
- anxious and preoccupied look;
- difficulty concentrating on a topic of conversation or a specific task;
- a person listens to something or sees something that you cannot see.
Delusional disorders.
According to experts, such disorders are among the main signs of psychosis. Defining what delirium is is not an easy task. With these disorders, even psychiatrists often disagree in their assessment of the patient’s condition.
Highlight following signs delirium:
- It is based on incorrect conclusions, erroneous judgments, and false beliefs.
- Delirium always occurs on a painful basis - it is always a symptom of a disease.
- Delusion cannot be corrected or dissuaded from the outside, despite the obvious contradiction with reality, a person with delusional disorder completely convinced of the validity of his erroneous ideas.
- Delusional beliefs are of extreme significance for the patient; one way or another, they determine his actions and behavior.
Delusional ideas are extremely diverse in their content. These ideas could be:
- persecution, poisoning, influence, material damage, witchcraft, damage, accusations, jealousy;
- self-deprecation, self-blame, hypochondriacal, denial;
- invention, high birth, wealth, greatness;
- love, erotic delirium.
Delusional disorders are also ambiguous in their form. There is a so-called interpretive delusion, in which the evidence of the main delusional idea is one-sided interpretation of everyday events and facts. This is a fairly persistent disorder when a sick person is disrupted in reflecting cause-and-effect relationships between phenomena. Such nonsense is always logically justified in its own way. A person suffering from this form of delusion can endlessly prove that he is right, give a lot of arguments, and debate. The content of interpretative delirium can reflect everything human feelings and experiences.
Another form of delirium is sensory or figurative delirium, which occurs against a background of anxiety, fear, confusion, severe mood disorders, hallucinations, and disturbances of consciousness. Such delirium is observed in acutely developed painful conditions. In this case, during the formation of delusions, there is no evidence or logical premises, and everything around is perceived in a special “delusional” way.
Often the development of acute sensory delirium syndrome is preceded by such phenomena as derealization and depersonalization. Derealization is a feeling of change in the surrounding world, when everything around is perceived as “unreal”, “rigged”, “artificial”; depersonalization is a feeling of change in one’s own personality. Patients with depersonalization characterize themselves as having “lost their own face,” “becoming stupid,” and “losing the fullness of their feelings.”
Catatonic syndromes.
This is how conditions are defined in which disturbances in the motor sphere predominate: retardation, stupor (Latin stupor - numbness, immobility) or, on the contrary, excitement. With catatonic stupor, muscle tone is often increased. This condition is characterized by complete immobility, as well as complete silence and refusal to speak. A person can freeze in the most unusual, uncomfortable position - with his arm extended, one leg raised, with his head raised above the pillow.
The state of catatonic excitation is characterized by chaoticity, lack of purpose, and repetition of individual movements, which can be accompanied by either complete silence or shouting of individual phrases or words. Catatonic syndromes can be observed even with clear consciousness, which indicates a great severity of disorders, and be accompanied by confusion. In the latter case, we are talking about a more favorable course of the disease.
Syndromes of confusion.
These conditions occur not only in mental disorders, but also in severe somatic patients. When consciousness is clouded, perception of the environment becomes difficult, contact with the outside world is disrupted.
There are several syndromes of stupefaction. They are characterized by a number of common features.
- Detachment from outside world. Patients are unable to comprehend what is happening, as a result of which their contact with others is disrupted.
- Disorientation in time, place, situation and in one’s own personality.
- Thinking disorder is the loss of the ability to think correctly and logically. Sometimes there is incoherent thinking.
- Memory impairment. During the period of clouding of consciousness, the assimilation of new information and reproduction of the existing one. After emerging from a state of impaired consciousness, the patient may experience partial or complete amnesia (forgetting) of the transferred state.
Each of the listed symptoms can occur in different mental disorders, and only their combination allows us to talk about clouding of consciousness. These symptoms are reversible. When consciousness is restored, they disappear.
Dementia (dementia).
Dementia is a deep impoverishment of a person’s entire mental activity, a persistent decline in all intellectual functions. With dementia, the ability to acquire new knowledge and their practical use deteriorates (and sometimes is completely lost), and adaptability to the outside world is impaired.
Experts distinguish between acquired pathology of intelligence (dementia, or dementia), which develops as a result of the progression of certain mental illnesses, and congenital pathology (oligophrenia, or dementia).
To summarize the above, we note that this lecture provides information about the most common symptoms and syndromes of mental disorders. It will help the reader better understand what specific mental illnesses are, such as schizophrenia, manic-depressive psychosis, and neuroses.
E.G. Rytik, E.S. Akimkina
"Main symptoms and syndromes of mental disorders."
"Crazy people live behind a high fence, and idiots walk along the street in crowds"
"The Unlucky" directed by Francis Weber
We live in times when hysterics and prolonged have become commonplace for many. Each of us is familiar with the condition when loved ones behave inappropriately or we ourselves suffer from insomnia, twisting the same thing in our heads all night long. obsessive thought. But these are signs of a prepsychotic state: anxiety, insomnia, unwillingness to live, hysteria, attacks on others, attempted suicide and sudden mood swings. In order to identify abnormalities in the psyche, it is necessary to observe a person in a hospital setting for 30 days, and in some cases, to make a diagnosis of schizophrenia, the patient must be examined for 6 months.
Mental illness- this is not only schizophrenia, they also include neuroses, psychoses, mania, panic attacks, paranoia, dementia and bipolar disorder. In turn, each mental disorder is divided into several more types. It is believed that if situations that cause acute stress reactions in people: hysteria, crying, attack, nervous tremors and other aggressive actions directed at others or at themselves, are episodic in nature and pass after some time, then they do not interfere with life and are not deviation from the norm.
However, it often happens that after the examination the doctor does not mental disorders in the patient does not reveal it, and after some time he commits a brutal, planned murder or harms the health of himself or others. This obvious deviation in the psyche and in order not to become a victim of such a patient, it is very important to have some ideas about how signs of mental disorders manifest themselves and how to behave when communicating or even living with them.
Nowadays, many people are forced to live together or next door with alcoholics, drug addicts, neurasthenics and elderly parents with dementia. If you delve into the intricacies of their daily life, you can easily come to the conclusion that there are simply no absolutely mentally healthy people, but only those who have been underexamined.
Permanent scandals, accusations, threats, assault, reluctance to live and even suicide attempts are the first signs that the mental health of the participants in such conflicts is not okay. If such behavior of a person is repeated over and over again and begins to affect the personal lives of other people, then we are talking about a mental illness and requires examination by a specialist.
Deviations in psyche First of all, they manifest themselves in the fact that a person’s perception of the world changes and his attitude towards the people around him changes. Unlike healthy people, people with mental disorders strive to satisfy only their physical and physiological needs, they do not care how their inappropriate behavior will affect the health and mood of others. They are cunning and attentive, selfish and hypocritical, unemotional and resourceful.
It's very hard to know when close a person shows excessive anger, aggression and unfounded accusations against you. Few are able to remain calm and accept inappropriate behavior loved one associated with mental disorders. In most cases, people think that a person is mocking them and try to apply “educational measures” in the form of moral teachings, demands and evidence of innocence.
With time mental illness progress and may combine delusional, hallucinatory and emotional disorders. Manifestations of visual, auditory and delusional hallucinations include the following:
- a person talks to himself, laughs for no apparent reason.
- cannot concentrate on the topic of conversation, always looks preoccupied and alarmed.
- hears extraneous voices and sees someone that you cannot perceive.
- is hostile towards family members, especially those who serve him. In more late stages As mental illness develops, the patient becomes aggressive, attacks others, and deliberately breaks dishes, furniture and other objects.
- tells stories of implausible or dubious content about oneself and loved ones.
- fears for his life, refuses food, accusing his loved ones of trying to poison him.
- writes statements to the police and letters to various organizations with complaints about relatives, neighbors and just acquaintances.
- hides money and things, quickly forgets where he put them and accuses others of stealing.
- does not wash or shave for a long time, in behavior and appearance there is sloppiness and uncleanliness.
Knowing the general signs mental disorders, it is very important to understand that mental illness brings suffering, first of all, to the patient himself, and only then to his loved ones and society. Therefore, it is completely wrong to prove to the patient that he is behaving immorally, to blame or reproach him for not loving you and making your life worse. Of course, a mentally ill person is a problem in the family. However, he must be treated as a sick person and react to their inappropriate behavior with understanding.
It is forbidden argue with the patient, trying to prove to him that his accusations against you are wrong. Listen carefully, reassure him and offer help. Do not try to clarify the details of his delusional accusations and statements, do not ask him questions that may aggravate his mental disorders. Any mental illness requires attention from loved ones and treatment by specialists. It should not cause criticism or accusations of selfishness towards the sick person.
Alas, from the development of mental disorders no one is insured. This is especially true for those who have a hereditary predisposition to the disease or care for elderly parents with dementia. Set an example good attitude to their children so that they do not repeat the mistakes of their parents.
